career day

Serving a mission qualifies anyone for pretty much any job you can think of. Cattle herding, secretary work, family and marriage counselors, event planners, wedding singers, beauticians, doctors, social worker, teacher (of any subject), and anything else you could possibly imagine. We do it all. And sometimes all in one day. And most the time we don`t really have any clue what we`re doing, so we just make it up as we go. Remember that show on TV about the people who learn a skill or job and have to fake it to a bunch of judges and the judges have to choose who is the fake and who is real? Maybe you have no idea what I am talking about or maybe I`m making it up...but the point is that I am sure I would win on that show.


I learned an important lesson this week. Actually I learn it almost every week, but it was especially apparent this week. It was a lesson in how you shouldn`t count your chickens until they`ve hatched because nothing is over until the fat lady sings and you can`t read the future by looking into a crystal ball. Cliche enough for you?

Here`s the thing. Sometimes we think everything is all in line to work out, and the we are thrown a little bit of a curveball. Like maybe you have everything ready for a baptism and then suddenly the night before the bishop tells you and your companion in front of the family who is about to be baptized that he refuses to let them be baptized. So then you are forced to use some creativity to remind him of the importance of baptism, do some cleanup work with the family who feels a little depressed afterwards, and rework everything to have the baptism a different day.

But the good news is that with a lot of praying and a lot of hard work, things work out just the way God intends them to. And so three sweet children got baptized yesterday in Machala. The baptism was great. The grandma..an inactive...came back to church and bore her testimony in sacrament meeting and talked about how happy she was to be back and how she has no plans of going inactive again. I hope she sticks to that. I always get so nervous about inactivity. It`s such a big problem here sometimes that I wish I could just super glue people into the chairs at church so they will never leave.

Also we were thrown another curve ball this week. We`ve been working with this amazing family who knows the church is true and wants to get baptized. The only downside is that they didnt want to get married. It`s hard to tell people to get married here becasue EVERYONE is just living together. It`s the norm here, so trying to get people to change their thinking about families and marriage is a challenge to say the least.

But we made amazing headway this week with a family. They want the blessings of the gospel, but have been afraid of taking the steps to receive those blessings (aka getting married) because life is so unsure. They told us of their concerns of not knowing what the future holds and how scared they are that things don`t work out. I realized how amazing it is that when we live the gospel, everything works out. But when it comes to families, it requires a team effort. ALL of us have to do our part. But this sweet family decided to make the plunge. They`re getting married And baptized. And they are going to be the next Young Women`s president and Ward Mission Leader. Seriously. They are so rad.

Except after they decided to get married we celebrated too soon. Turns out the process is a little complicated because they each have kids with other partners. So more paperwork and more money. And then there are some custody issues with the wife`s daughter. And also the wife (Nelly) is pregnant and going to pop any second, so we`re sort of in a race against the clock. But I know it will all work out. They are too good to lose.

Also. This week was full of lots of adventures, as usual. We made a float in our living room out of a bed frame and a broken fan to celebrate the 4th of July. And we`re going to go eat hamburgers and pretend like we`re at a bbq. We also went in search all over this town this week for a cake for the kids that got baptized because we felt bad we had to change the date. They were really disappointed, so we bought them a cake. Everyone knows cake always make things better. Except this cake was nasty. People here don`t know what good cake is. Really. It was all dry and flavorless. We packed a picnic the other day because we didn`t have anywhere to eat lunch. We sat down on the side of the road and ate egg salad sandwiches. Apparently people don`t do that here because our bishop rode his bike past us and thought we were the weirdest things of all time.

The church is true. The Atonement is the only thing that can give us lasting hope and happiness in life. Doing the little things daily like reading the scriptures and praying and going to the temple frequently are absolutely necessary to our sanity and spiritual growth.

So here`s your challenge of the week: read your scriptures every single day. without fail. Just do it, even if it is just for a few minutes. They are absolute treasure and can change your life if you let them. But the trick is...you actually have to read them.

I guess that is enough of me bossing you around for now.

Love you all more than fireworks and watermelon seed spitting contests.
Have the best week of your lives